R.E.A.D. Curriculum: A Review

Reading Curricula are numerous with varying theories and scopes & sequences. I find it hard to recommend one because I believe that decision weighs heavily on both the teaching style of the parent and the learning style of the student. My daughter has just finished kindergarten; however, with summer here, I was looking for a reading worksheets and phonics readers that would help my soon-to-be first grader retain the skills she had learned. So, when I was given the opportunity to review Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook and R.E.A.D. Review Pack by The Crafty Classroom, I jumped at the chance.

The Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook is a 36 week language arts program designed to teach your kindergartener how to read. Every week the student does a variety of activities based around one word family, a few sight words, and a simple grammar concept. Every 5 weeks, you will spend the week focusing on blends and digraphs. Other tasks include writing, science sequencing, and drawing.

This digital notebook includes everything you need to know to set up and teach your student to read:

Curriculum Overview: See each week’s targets.

Daily Schedule: A suggested outline of the day’s activities for the four-day schedule.

Blends and Digraphs Schedule: A suggested weekly schedule for the Blend Weeks.

Instructions for Interactive Notebook: How to create and use a notebook to help support your student’s learning.

Pre-Assessment Activities: Find out what your student knows, so you can use their strengths and better target their weaknesses.

Daily Warm up: A daily worksheet practicing the basic skills you would do in a circle time such as date, the day’s weather and temperature, tomorrow/yesterday, and daily math/time skill.

Activity Instructions: A description of how to set up and teach each activity. Click here for a detailed explanation of all the different activities.

My Opinion

Phonetic Readers

One of my pet peeves with early readers is they are full of words that emergent readers cannot decode. The readers in the R.E.A.D. Review Pack only uses words with sounds that the students have been exposed to, starting their journey to reading on a successful foot.

Repetition

I love the repetition within the student activities. I believe it is one way to help students really get those foundational skills.

Ebook

I love the versatility of the digital format. The Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook has 798 pages and the R.E.A.D. Review Pack has 92 pages. Keep printing costs in mind. Most of the student workbook pages are black and white, so that will save on colored ink. Also, I printed 2 worksheets on 1 page to help minimize printing.

I plan to continue to use both the Learn to R.E.A.D. Curriculum Notebook and the R.E.A.D. Review Pack with my soon-to-be first grader as support and review material and independent worksheets. If you are in the market for a reading curriculum, this is a solid program, incorporating the 5 essential components of Reading (phonemic awareness, phonetics, fluency, and vocabulary, and reading comprehension) with hands-on activities.

Have you used this or any product from Crafty Classroom? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.